From Special Reports
WEST POINT – Starkville High School football coach Ricky Woods sees a lot of similarities between West Point High School and his old team at South Panola High School.
Both lean on the rushing game a lot.
The Green Wave (1-0) opened the season last week with a 46-7 victory over Louisville on the road and rushed for 412 yards on 50 carries.
“You trade tapes and you know what they’re going to do,” Woods said who led South Panola to four-straight Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 5A State championships. “You gear up and try to stop it. They’ve got a good team and they’ve got a good running team. They’ll throw good enough to hurt you.”
The Class 6A Yellow Jackets (1-1) travel to Class 5A West Point Friday night for a 7 p.m. kickoff.
Sophomore quarterback Marcus Murphy led the West Point rushing attack with 153 yards. He also had three rushing touchdowns and a passing score. Sophomore running back Chris Calvert added 87 yards on the ground. The Green Wave only threw the ball five times and had two completions for 81 yards. The West Point defense only allowed 11 first downs and 218 total yards of offense to the Wildcat offense. Louisville scored in the first quarter, but didn’t find the end zone the rest of the night.
“We played well in all three phases of the game,” West Point coach Chris Chambless said. “For a first game, we did not make a lot of mistakes. I thought the offensive line played well and that really allowed us to have a big game on the ground.”
Starkville is coming off Woods’ first win with the program after taking down rival Oxford 20-7 on national television last Friday night. The Jackets opened the season with a 26-20 double overtime loss to Noxubee County, but they bounced back nicely after the defeat.
Senior wide receiver A.J. Brown was a big key in the victory against the Chargers as he hauled in a career-high 16 catches for 192 yards. In two games, he has 30 catches for 339 yards and one touchdown.
“We played better,” Woods said. “Oxford had a really good team. We played a lot better I thought on both sides of the ball. We’ve got to continue to get better every week. We’ve got a lot of room to improve. The kids know it, I know it. You don’t want to peak until later. You sure don’t want to peak right now. We’ve still got a lot of progress to make.”
The Jackets have only given up 238 total rushing yards for 119 per contest in the early going. Opposing teams haven’t fared that much better in the passing department against the Jackets with only 252 yards through the air given up. Defensive coordinator Brooks Oakley has utilized two good gameplans in the first two weeks and the defense has played well.
“I just let them do it and they do a great job,” Woods said. “They’ve seen it before and he handles the defensive plan. They’ve got a good plan I think.”
The meeting of the two teams also means another chapter in an already fierce rivalry. The two teams battled as Class 5A opponents for the longest time and the Yellow Jackets clipped the Wave in overtime in the 2012 Class 5A North Half State title game. Starkville went on to win the state championship that year.
“There was always a lot on the line,” Chambless said. “It is good to continue to play them. It’s still a big game even though it doesn’t impact the playoff race.”
Starkville offensive line coach Lee Grisham coached at West Point last season and Woods and Chambless have known each other for the good part of 20 years, so there is a lot of friendships between the two schools.
“It’s a good healthy rivalry,” Woods said. “All the coaches are friends and I’m sure these players are friends, but you want to beat your friends as much as you do anybody, probably more.”
Dispatch sports writers Ben Wait and Scott Walters contributed to this report.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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